Accuracy limitations of interferometric radar owing to the radar cross section of its antenna

Journal
IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques  
Volume
72
Issue
7
Start Page
4317
End Page
4324
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques 72 (7): 4317-4324 (2024)
Publisher DOI
10.1109/TMTT.2024.3350350
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85182942769
Publisher
IEEE
This article analyzes the influence of the intrinsic radar cross section (RCS) of interferometric radar systems on their accuracy. The latter is generally considered to be limited by the electrical imperfections and nonlinearities of the radar front-end. However, it will be derived that even if the front-end is ideal and linear, continuous-wave (CW) radars are inherently nonlinear systems. The cause is multiple reflections between the target and the radar antenna, which itself exhibits a nonzero RCS. Although significantly smaller, the secondary reflections superimpose to the primary one, thereby introducing amplitude and phase deviations, which are then erroneously attributed to target displacement. The established model as well as the derived error estimates are verified by measurements with a vector network analyzer and targets with different RCSs.
Subjects
Accuracy
Antenna measurements
antenna radar cross section (RCS)
Antennas
Doppler radar
Doppler radar
interferometric radar
Radar
Radar antennas
Radar cross-sections
radar modeling
Reflection
DDC Class
624: Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering